Research Through Making, Taubman College of Architecture + Urban Planning

University of Michigan Office of Research

Electroform(alism) explores hybrid ways of making - reviving Nineteenth Century metal plating techniques and adjusting them to contemporary design and fabrication methods. In re-imagining electroforming as an intrepid, present-day process that moves beyond the simple replication of metallic objects on a master form, the strategy tests novel aesthetic, material and economic possibilities in service of mass customization. Using expendable and embedded substrates, the prototypes generate distinct metallurgical ornament and articulated skins. More importantly, perhaps, the process also conceives of a new mode of small scale fabrication – one that is adaptive, nomadic and generative.